Global Issues: Human Rights: “Beware those who sneer at ‘human rights imperialism’”

There is an exclllent article in the Guardian entitled Beware those who sneer at ‘human rights imperialism’ which is of direct relevance to the Global Issues ‘Human Rights’ topic.

Recently, the universal status of human rights has come to be challenged by critics who stress the Western, masculine, intolerant nature of this universalism. The human rights template severely limits the degree of acceptable variation in social practices. This universalism has been challenged on feminist grounds as privileging patriarchy. More generally, the liberal position on rights privileges a particular account of human dignity. Cultural critics of universal rights include proponents of ‘Asian values’ and ‘Islamic critique’ and from an economic position left wing critics see human rights as being at odds with ‘communitarianism’. Are these criticisms just self serving? Also, can the ‘universalism’ of human rights be defended?

The article goes someway to illustrating and addressing these key issues relating to the importance of human rights and also how its ‘universalism’ has been challenged. The article argues: ‘If universal rights are dismissed as ‘western’, where does that leave Iranians, Tunisians and Sudanese battling for them?’ Its not a straight forward read, but incisive and some excellent scholarly references - so in short - a must read!